>>105777623The other effects are also things no one talks about in this context. Some of which also applies to using AI.
There's no motivation to build things with a focus on least maintenance. So when they could be making a decision to use the new method instead of the deprecated method, they will always choose the deprecated method, which they will then charge you to fix when it breaks. Similarly, there is no motivation to build things with robustness in mind, so it will be built in a functional but brittle way so that they can maximize value extraction.
Since you're sacrificing code quality, the buggy code is going to lead to off-hours outages, which you will then pay them an hourly rate to troubleshoot during those off-hours. So that siphons off some more of your supposed savings.
Since it is an entirely transactional relationship, there's a complete lack of ownership of the product and passion for the product or technology amongst the people or AI building it. So things like synergies between products that would be surfaced and utilized by permanent employees just doesn't happen, and systems are built as siloed undocumented messes.
In the long run, this actually ends up costing you more money than if you had just hired correctly from the start.